Mayor Mitch Landrieu is scrambling to create a new taxing district along New Orleans' riverfront that would let the city keep all sales tax revenue collected from new developments, the nonprofit news site The Lens reports.

The push comes in the final hours of the 2014 legislative session, which ends Monday, raising questions about the plan's intent and why Landrieu and his allies elected not to subject it to more in-depth public discussions.

According to The Lens, the proposed law would let the city keep all sales taxes and hotel-motel occupancy taxes paid by future developments along the Mississippi River, rather than split the proceeds with the state government, the Regional Transit Authority and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, as it does now.

The bill has quietly simmered in the Legislature all session, with the Landrieu administration calling it a simple placeholder until something more concrete could be chiseled out. That time has come, apparently.

Whether the plan for the new taxing district had anything to do with the end of negotiations in April to redevelop the World Trade Center remains to be seen. Andy Kopplin, Landrieu's chief administrative officer, told The Lens there was no connection.

The World Trade Center would be included in the new district, according to The Lens.